


Patio

by Severina



Series: Alphabet Soup [16]
Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Community: 1_million_words, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-11
Updated: 2015-10-11
Packaged: 2018-04-25 22:10:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4978444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severina/pseuds/Severina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I ain't gonna ask you what happened," he finally says. "You never gotta tell nobody 'less you want to."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Patio

**Author's Note:**

> Post Grady, Beth never died la la la. Written for LJ's 1_million_words A to Z Challenge for the "P" prompt.
> 
> * * *

There's a rooftop patio overlooking the cracked and pitted parking lot. Just a couple of folding lawn chairs, an upturned cooler that someone had used as a table. An ashtray overflowing with butts. Maybe some of the employees of the strip mall had snuck up to the roof for breaks. Maybe survivors had hunkered down here after the fall. No way to know for sure, 'cause the dead bodies littering the stores aren't talking.

It's too cold to be outside with the sun long gone down, with only her thin sweater to wrap over her arms. But Beth likes the cold. She likes the way the crispness of the air clarifies her thoughts, clears her head. The chain link surrounding the lot rattles in the distance, but in the dark she can't tell if it's walkers stumbling into the barrier or the gusts of the wind that is making the fencing sway. There was a time that she would have panicked at the sound, but now she merely sits up straighter in the chair. The fence will either hold or it won't. 

The links rattle again, almost smothering the noise of the shifting gravel beneath someone's feet. Her fingers flick instinctively to the knife at her hip, even though she knows the visitor is one of her own and will do her no harm. The lessons taught at Grady aren't easily unlearned. 

"Was a good idea, comin' here," Daryl says from behind her. "Good eye."

Beth opens her mouth to protest that anyone might have seen the strip mall even though it was practically buried by the kudzu, then closes it again without speaking. No one else _did_ see the little group of stores. Not Rick, too caught up in whatever mental gymnastics he was going through after watching Grady burn. Not Michonne, fussing over Carl; not Maggie and Glenn, fussing over each other. Not Tara lugging a baby on her back that wasn't even hers, a baby that they'd tried to hand off to Beth herself before she shook her head and slid her hand to her knife and strode off to take point. Not Abraham and Rosita with their eyes peeled for walkers. Not even Daryl. Only her.

"Thanks," she says when Daryl drops into the seat beside her. He flings his long legs out, crosses his ankles. She realizes she's still got her fingers hovering at her hip; eases her hand away and settles back on her own chair and knows that nothing misses Daryl's careful notice.

But it's still five minute before he speaks. Five minutes while she remembers Gorman's hands on her body and the crunch of thick glass impacting on his skull, and resists the urge to touch the comforting hilt of her knife.

"I ain't gonna ask you what happened," he finally says. "You never gotta tell nobody 'less you want to."

She can't imagine ever finding the words to express the low-level terror she lived with for weeks. The fear that coiled, constant, in her belly. The beatings and avoiding the guard's quick slick hands. Feeling Carol's pulse flutter and fade. The pain is too raw. The wound is still too deep.

But she can find something for him.

"We went out through the elevator shaft once," she says. "Me and Noah. Had to psych myself up for an hour beforehand. Never did like heights." When his gaze flicks to hers, she finds him a smile. "One time, Shawn bet me ten dollars that I wouldn't be able to climb up to the platform of the windmill. I got halfway up and then just… froze. Daddy had to prop up a ladder and climb up beside me before I'd make my way back down."

There is only the sound of the wind lashing against the fencing down below; then Daryl inclines his head. "But you did it."

Beth remembers her father's arm cradled around her ten-year-old waist, his forehead touching hers as he leaned in to give her encouragement. Shawn's worried face down below. She remembers, too, her legs shaking as they dangled over the edge of the elevator shaft, not a child anymore but feeling a little like one. The makeshift rope wrapped around her middle felt like it would strangle her; her heart beating so loud and fast that she was sure Dawn would hear it and come running. Pushing off had been the hardest part; letting herself dangle in mid-air with her heart thumping and her breath caught in her throat. Making her way through the walkers after that felt almost easy.

But she did it. She was never going to _like_ heights, but they didn’t scare her the same way either. Nothing was the same anymore.

"I did it," she agrees aloud. And in her mind's eye she sees the surprised look in Rick's eyes when she shook her head and backed away from Judith that afternoon. "I can't go back to the way things were."

"None of us can," Daryl says.

He lifts his hand from the arm of the lawn chair. 

And Beth hesitates.

Maybe someday she'll be able to tell him. About Gorman's sour breath and Dawn's vicious backhands. About lying awake in her hospital bed listening to the sound of the guard's heavy footsteps in the hall, and clutching a broken needle beneath the sheets to use as a makeshift weapon if those footsteps paused at her door. Of spitting a broken tooth down the sink, and tending wounds, and always looking for an angle and a way out. 

Maybe someday she'll be able to find her way back to the girl who sat at a dining room table and naively wrote a Thank You note. Who willingly risked her safety for the chance to pet a dog. Who looked into a man's eyes and saw hope there, and courage, and love.

Beth takes a breath, then reaches out across the space between their chairs. His hand is cool, calloused. She wraps her fingers around Daryl's and leans back, closes her eyes.

She can start with this.


End file.
